The Watermill
There was a watermill at Huncote in 1086 when the Domesday Survey was
carried out. It was worth ten shillings. Eight hundred years later, there was
still a watermill at Huncote grinding corn. It belonged to John Hobill, a man
with a lot of varied business interests and there is evidence to show that he
was working the mill in 1841. According to Michael Tanner in Old Huncote,
Charles Payne was the miller until 1833 and after his death, John Hobill from
Littlethorpe became the miller. He modernised the mill by adding a steam
engine to regulate the power level and separated the mill from the mill house.
The trade directory for 1900 shows that the mill was still grinding corn and that
the miller was John’s son, John Thomas Hobill. In 1904 he was a corn dealer
which suggests that he was no long milling the corn. There is no date for the
destruction of the mill but it would have been after 1900.
Sources: The Windmills of Leicestershire and Rutland, Nigel Moon; Old
Huncote, Michael Tanner; Trade Directories, 1846, 1863, William White;
1861, Drake; 1876, 1881, 1891, 1895, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1922, 1925,
1928, 1932, 1936, 1941, Kelly; 1884, 1896, 1898, Wright; 1870 Harrod